From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2010-08-24T05:47:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Code Parsing

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On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 01:35:15AM +0900, Caleb Clausen wrote:
> On 8/23/10, Chad Perrin <code@apotheon.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 04:20:54PM +0900, Ryan Davis wrote:
> >> On Aug 22, 2010, at 20:12 , Chad Perrin wrote:
> >> >
> >> > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 08:38:40AM +0900, Caleb Clausen wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Ruby is designed to be easy for humans to read, which means it is n=
ot
> >> >> easy for computers to parse. As opposed to say, perl, which is hard
> >> >> for both humans and computers to parse. If you were to write down in
> >> >> one email a complete set of rules, it would be a pretty long email.
> >> >
> >> > I find Perl pretty easy to parse.  Maybe yours is a personal problem.
> >>
> >> No, you do not find perl pretty easy to parse. Last time I checked, you
> >> can NOT statically parse perl. You have to evaluate it in order to get
> >> a proper parse. So, you find it pretty easy to evaluate. No easy task
> >> for me, I'll admit, but there is no reason for you to be an ass about
> >> it.
> >
> > Regardless of nitpicky phrasing, I found your comment about Perl kind of
> > ass-ish.  It seems kind of ironic to be called an ass for pointing out
> > that your problems with Perl may not be others' problems, when you make=
 a
> > categorical deprecating statement about Perl.
>=20
> First of all, do not confuse me with Ryan.

You're right -- I apologize.  That was sloppy of me.


>=20
> My statement about perl was perfectly accurate, in addition to being
> deprecatory.  Although perl has been an interesting experiment in
> language design, it can at best be seen as  a rough draft for ruby. No
> one, not even its mother, has ever claimed perl is beautiful. Why do
> you think the symbol of perl is a camel?

"it can at best be seen as a rough draft for ruby"

=2E . . except for the things it does better, I suppose.  I find both Ruby
and Perl quite useful, each more so in some contexts than others, so that
neither of them feels like it should be tossed out of my toolbox, and
neither is always a better choice than the other.


>=20
> What I mostly find unreadable about perl code are the many uses of
> sigils, particularly dollar signs which interrupt the flow of the
> narrative in perl programs. The special funnily-named global variables
> ($_, $\, etc) are pretty ugly too. Of course, ruby has these as well,
> but they just don't seem to be needed as much. The fact that some
> variables sometimes start with a $ and other times with a @ is also
> disturbing. None of these are the reasons that make perl difficult for
> programs to parse; those are entirely different problems.

Sigils serve as a common kicking-dog for people looking for excuses to
dislike Perl, I've noticed.  What you find disturbing, however, others
sometimes find useful within the context of Perl's syntactic model.  As
for those "funnily-named global variables", they are often better used
implicitly than explicitly so that they are rarely needed (to be seen) in
Perl, too.

Of course, if you never grasped that, it might help explain your aversion
to a language that has them, I suppose.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

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